Sanikiluaq (Sep 15/03) - Monica Diane Meeko, 2, proves that you are never too young to have an appreciation for traditional clothing.

Monica Diane Meeko, 2, gets lost in a pile of newly-made traditional fish skin dolls. - photo courtesy of Louisa Meeko

The little girl who lives in Sanikiluaq was literally up to her ears in fish skin dolls at her home recently, thanks to a program in her community headed by the Najuqsivik Society and the Department of Sustainable Development, where dolls were made in fish skin dresses.

"She likes them, she plays with them, too," said her grandmother, Nellie Meeko.

The fish skin for the dolls was donated to the community from Panniqtuuq. For the last two years senior students and local women in the community have been making these eye-catching dolls for people to buy and enjoy.

But before the creation of Nunavut, and long before government programs aided such projects, people dressed in fish skin, just like these dolls, Nellie said.

"A long, long time ago I had a mother-in-law," Nellie recalled. "She used to tell a story about the old days, how people used to wear cod fish skin, polar bear skin, and duck eiderdown. They used to wear those a long time ago."

But by the time Nellie moved with her family to the Belcher Islands (now Sanikiluaq) when she was 11 years-old, people were no longer dressing in those skins. All that was left were the stories.

"We just used material," Nellie recalled of her youth.

"But the elders used to make those amutiq or parkas out of eiderdown," she said.

Watching her granddaughter play with the fish skin dolls takes Nellie back to another time, and it makes her laugh with delight.

As for Monica, she has played with these kinds of traditional dolls since she was born, and may one day be compelled to learn how to make them.

Videos on the making of these traditionally outfitted dolls were also shot recently, and will be available through the Department of Sustainable Development in English and Inuktitut.